I'm Falling Apart

My laptop had been giving me some sass the last few days, and I had refused to listen. By Friday it had begun to scream at me. "I'm falling apart, I'm falling apart, please pay attention!"

So, Saturday night I contacted Dell for online help. It seems I had waited too long, and the help I needed fell under a category not covered by my four year warranty. So, I took the steps that the lady suggested and supposed that all would be well. However, before my help could make it's journey from Dell to me, this computer that is my constant companion, that holds a huge amount of memory, crashed!

I did everything possible to stop this disaster, but my attempts were in vain. I lost pictures, articles, work from school, music, papers that I had typed for my husband's on going education, and numerous other things, some valuable and some not.

I was sick for a few hours until I remembered, "I have an external hard drive!" This hard drive did not have everything that my laptop had, but it had most of my pictures, and a few other things that I considered valuable.
So sometime tomorrow, I will recover whatever I can.

This experience has left me thinking.... a rather dangerous pastime!

The treasures of my life are mostly stored in my personal memory bank. Some of my earliest recollections include sitting as close to my dad as possible with brothers and sisters and sometimes cousins, listening as he told us stories that came straight from his wonderful imagination, or gathering around the breakfast table to devour my mother's huge biscuits smothered in the best gravy ever cooked and washing it all down with refreshing ice tea. Isn't childhood the most innocent and fascinating time of life.

One of the dearest memories of that era was listening to and watching my mom and dad as they taught us kids to pray. They taught by example! I can still see my dad's chin start to quiver as he began to feel the presence of God, and huge tears began to roll down his weathered cheeks. I can see the heaving of my mom's shoulders, as she would lose herself in travail, interceding with God for us kids and for the needs of life.

The most outstanding memory is of the night that I received the Holy Ghost. Paula Outlaw was praying with me, and I was only 7 years old. I remember dancing around in a circle, and as I spoke in tongues, I could hear Paula saying, "That's it Debbie! That's it!" Then there was my baptism by Bro. Outlaw in cold, cold Caney Creek. What a treasure to have in this earthen vessel!

The years of growing up with a hoard of brothers and sisters (none of which I would trade off), my marriage to Glenn, the birth of my son and my daughter, what wonderful memories! I could go on and on, for I have had a great life, and I want to think that I will never forget.

However, I do know that there are things that can rob us of every one of life's memorable events. I have seen the effects of brain cancer at work, the way that awful disease can steal away the thought process is heart rending. I have watched a victim of stroke as he lost motor skills, speech, thought patterns, and finally memory and life. These are a couple of things that can cause a 'memory crash,' but I think the worse I have ever encountered is Alzheimer's disease.

I was a major caregiver when my mother was attacked by this debilitating disease. I saw first hand, her loss of a minute ago, yesterday, last year, adulthood, and even childhood. I spent hours listening to stories that I had never heard and that she had once forgotten, things that going backward into time made her remember. At the same time, she would look me in the face and ask, "Where is Debbie?" Oh, what pain and what heartbreak!

So, as a way of preventing the loss of all the wonderful memories stored in this very fragile memory bank of mine, I am going to try and store some of them on paper. Possibly, there will come a time when I will need someone to open up the pages of my life, and read to me, as a way of reminder, about the happy and the sad times of my life! There may come a day that my children or even my grandchildren will want to understand the ins and outs of my life! I want my memories to be available should that day come, and I hope I have not waited too long, that I have heard that inner cry, " I'm falling apart, I'm falling apart, please pay attention!"